Michigan Land Air Water Defense is hoping to stop oil and gas leases that were issued by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in the Allegan State Game Area, shown here in this file photo.File photo | Mlive Media Group

ALLEGAN, MI – An Allegan County judge warned an environmental group on Thursday, April 10, that she’s not out to make new law on behalf of its effort to cancel state-issued oil and gas leases in the Allegan State Game Area.

“I’m not in a position to create new law, I have to follow the law,” Circuit Judge Margaret Bakker told Michigan Land Air Water Defense lawyer Jim Olson and some 80 citizens gathered in her courtroom for a 90-minute hearing.

That warning may not bode well for Olson, who argued the state Department of Natural Resources should have been held to tighter standards when it auctioned the leases in 2012. Bakker, who was hearing a state request to dismiss the case, said she will issue a ruling in several weeks.

In its lawsuit, the environmental group is trying to cancel leases that were auctioned by the state DNR for oil and gas exploration in 12,000 acres of the Allegan State Game Area.